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I think ethics is always there it's not always a very thoughtful or reflective ethics.

Peter Singer

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Peter Singer
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: July 6
Philosopher
Politician
Professor
Writer
Melbourne
Australia
Peter Albert David Singer
Peter A. D. Singer
Thinking
Reflective
Thoughtful
Ethics
Sadness
Always
Think

More quotes by Peter Singer

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According to classical utilitarianism, the only intrinsic good is happiness the only intrinsic bad is pain. That implies no intrinsic value in preserving nature, that preserving an endangered plant is valuable only if it benefits humans or other animals. Intuitively, that seems wrong but perhaps I shouldn't trust my intuition here.
Peter Singer
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The Pentagon said that these prisoners were kept in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and of course I was not reassured by that, but I couldn't prove that that was wrong so we're clearer about that.
Peter Singer
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I don't see how anyone could really think that if you have a choice between saving the life of one person and saving the lives of a million people, to say - well, I've saved the one - can you really take that seriously? I can't.
Peter Singer
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Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity.
Peter Singer
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There could conceivably be circumstances in which an experiment on an animal stands to reduce suffering so much that it would be permissible to carry it out even if it involved harm to the animal... [even if] the animal were a human being.
Peter Singer
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I don't think there's anything in the compromise that means that there's a clash of ethics.
Peter Singer
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The Internet, like the steam engine, is a technological breakthrough that changed the world.
Peter Singer
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The core of ethics runs deep in our species and is common to human beings everywhere. It survives the most appalling hardships and the most ruthless attempts to deprive human beings of their humanity. Nevertheless, some people resist the idea that his core has a biological basis which we have inherited from our pre-human ancestors.
Peter Singer
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Putting the AR movement directly in opposition to the environmental movement, which should be our natural allies in fighting human arrogance and domination of the planet.
Peter Singer
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I don't understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It's a pretty gross interference with nature. I think it ought to be governed by the standards of how it affects the individual animals, just as we'd want to deal with institutions that deal with humans by how they affect individual humans.
Peter Singer
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There is a growing movement called effective altruism. It's important because it combines both the heart and the head.
Peter Singer
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Pain and suffering are in themselves bad and should be prevented or minimized, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the being that suffers. How bad a pain is depends on how intense it is and how long it lasts, but pain of the same intensity and duration are equally bad, whether felt by humans or animals.
Peter Singer
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Should one break in and free the animals? That is illegal, but the obligation to obey the law is not absolute. It was justifiably broken by those who helped runaway slaves in the American South, to mention only one possible parallel.
Peter Singer
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So why don't we make ourselves the last generation on earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required - we could party our way into extinction!
Peter Singer
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When children see animals in a circus, they learn that animals exist for our amusement. Quite apart from the cruelty involved in training and confining these animals, the whole idea that we should enjoy the humiliating spectacle of an elephant or lion made to perform circus tricks shows a lack of respect for the animals as individuals.
Peter Singer
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Why...is the hunter who shoots a deer for venison subject to more criticism than the person who buys a ham at the supermarket? Overall, it is probably the intensively reared pig who has suffered more.
Peter Singer
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Business ethics has always had problems that are distinct from those of other professions, such as medicine, law, engineering, dentistry, or nursing.
Peter Singer
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The future of the world depends on how well we meet it.
Peter Singer
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All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering, the animals are our equals.
Peter Singer
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Of course, infanticide needs to be strictly legally controlled and rare - but it should not be ruled out, any more than abortion.
Peter Singer